La transformation des syndicats français

Abstract

One of the major problems of environmental psychology lies in its apparent unwillingness to conceptualize complex human behaviour--that is, social behaviour. This limitation seems to reduce our possibilities for understanding the individual's interaction with the physical environment as well as his interaction in the physical environment. In order to redress this shortcoming, it would seem that more reference to theoretical models of social behaviour is necessary. With this in mind, this paper proposes to examine the possibilities for such a theoretical framework by referring to the pragmatic theory of George Herbert Mead and to some later developments of that theory by Basil Bernstein in order to structure an enquiry into a critical area of environmental interaction--housing. Two hypotheses were proposed. First, that middle-class housewives have a higher degree of conceptual structure than do working-class housewives as regards their evaluation of their homes; second, that middle-class housewives will show a lower degree of agreement among themselves than working-class housewives in this respect. Two groups of housewives, selected according to their social composition, were chosen as experimental subjects. Their cognitive characteristics with respect to their own houses were measured by means of George Kelly's repertory grid technique. From the grid data, some measurements of structure and content were extracted, following the lines advocated by Stringer. Some evidence supporting the experimental hypotheses advanced was derived concerning the way in which elements were organized in the construct system. However, some of the results were not consistent with expectations--for example, regarding the different ways in which constructs were used and the dimensionality of the construct system. These results are discussed with reference to some methodological and possibly theoretical limitations of the study, although such limitations may indicate fruitful directions for further study.